Many thanks to the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics for this press release promoting the 2020 Australian Catholic LGBTIQA+ Pastoral Care Symposium
As a senior member of this community I am excited and hopeful that this new initiative will open doors of welcome,acceptance and dialogue at every level of the Church in Australia.
This year I celebrate the 50th anniversary of my Year 12 graduation from St Joseph's Christian Brothers College Geelong. My years at "Joey's" included the experience of isolation and loneliness as a young gay student.Many years later I learnt of classmates who had shared my journey. Sadly the silence and culture of our time denied us the grace of peer support in the discovery of the wonder of our identity as young gay men.
In more recent years I have been invited back to"Joey's" as a life member of the old Collegians to share my story to senior students who now live in a culture of welcome and recognition of the sexual diversity of their classmates and friends.
However in most of our Diocesan and Parish structures we still fail to provide for the spiritual and pastoral needs of my sisters and brothers who identify across the diversity of LGBTIQA+ people.
I go to this symposium carrying the challenges of forming mentors for the next generation and also outreach and support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Catholics who identify as Brotha Boys and Sistagirls.
I look forward to returning from this event with a fire in my belly for dialogue, action and commitment from our pastoral leaders in the Catholic Church in Australia.
Catholic LGBTIQ Pastoral Care organizers and leaders around Australia will be gathering together for the first Australian National Catholic LGBTQIA+ Pastoral Care Symposium from the 31st January – 1st February 2020 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. 30 years has passed since a conference of such has been held.
The theme of the national symposium: “I am about to do a new thing” – draws from our renewed hope found in Scripture and in Pope Francis’ reminder that “The goodness of God has no limits and discriminates against no one. Because of this, the banquet of the Lord’s gifts is universal, for everyone” and that we as Church must go out to the “existential peripheries” where pain, suffering, healing alongside great faith and new ways of flourishing is being found.
This national symposium will consider the religious, spiritual, social and political context in which LGBTQIA+ Catholics, their families and friends live, and what it means for the Australian Catholic Church’s Plenary Council 2020, the debate around ‘religious freedom’ after civil marriage equality became law and how Catholic leaders and organizers can respond to this as well as other pressing issues of church reform and renewal.
The symposium intends to address the recent debate around the need for religious people to have the freedom to discriminate against others under the banner of ‘Religious Freedom’. This political debate is causing much distress to many in the Catholic community, not least LGBTQIA Catholics and children of LGBTIQ Catholics, but also Catholics who are single-parents, divorced, who have disabilities or come from a cultural minority group fearing that the proposed law will pass.
The national symposium will conclude with a Plenary Forum titled: ‘”Scapegoating: pointing the finger of blame” where prominent Australian social justice advocate, Sr Susan Connelly RSJ intends to speak of the way scapegoating deflects issues and anesthetises communities against systemic erasure, invisibility and discrimination.
Over the past decade, members of the interagency has been working to put in place an appropriate national guide to Catholic LGBTQIA+ Pastoral Care, which included dialogue with church leaders, organizers and pastoral workers on various levels. At this National Symposium, an Australian Rainbow Catholic Pastoral Care Guide to support Catholics reflection and action on best practice for them, their agencies, communities, services and parishes. The Australian Rainbow Catholic Pastoral Care Guide is a ‘live’ working document to help Catholics in Australia better counter discrimination and hatred in line with the Catechism’s call for “respect, compassion and sensitivity.”
Organisers hope that in bringing together LGBTQIA+ pastoral organizers and leaders from around Australia, will bring about greater momentum for better ministry, where the spiritual well-being and health of LGBTQIA+ Catholics, their families and communities will be properly cared for and addressed.
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